


My Brother, My Balm

by SpartFarkles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, In the Cage, could be read as michifer, mild descriptions of pain and suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpartFarkles/pseuds/SpartFarkles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael willingly lets himself get pulled into the Cage and experiences the suffering he feels he deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Brother, My Balm

Sam was falling, and with him, Lucifer. Lucifer was powerless to stop it and Sam was determined. A hand reached out and grabbed on to his borrowed body, pulling him along for the ride. It would have been easy to stop it. A simple snap of the fingers that temporarily belonged to him, and he would have been far away, leaving Sam and Lucifer to fall into the Cage alone. The apocalypse would have been over before it started, and Michael could return home the victor, his duty finally complete.

But Michael let himself, and Adam, get pulled along for the ride.

They were falling for what seemed like a very long time. It was both warm and cold, silent and far too loud. There was pain, so much pain, as he and Adam were forcibly separated.

There was nothing.

All too quickly, there was everything.

Pain, screaming, fire everywhere. It felt like his very Grace was being doused with holy oil and lit up. Every injury, every wound he'd ever inflicted was being repeated on him.

It was what he deserved.

Even in the midst of the torture that Michael willingly accepted onto himself, there was something there, in the back of his mind, calling to him. The moment he felt it, he knew. Though it had been so long since he'd felt it so strongly, he knew. The glimpses he had throughout the millennia were nothing compared to what it was like now. Despite deserving the pain, welcoming the torture, he still clung to that something, unwilling to let it go.

Lucifer.

Lucifer was a cold spot in the midst of the unbearable heat. If Michael clung too tightly, it hurt- another form of torture, he supposed. But he'd gone so long without Lucifer's voice echoing in his mind, so long without Lucifer's presence so entwined with his that he couldn't help but cling. It was, after all, why he was really here. 

He couldn't let Lucifer fall alone again.

The glimpses he'd gotten of Lucifer throughout the years in the head space all the archangels shared with one another had been a special kind of torture for a while. Though he had fallen, Lucifer had still somehow managed to project his emotions and vague thoughts to the rest of them. Anger, hatred, betrayal, loneliness. He'd longed to follow them, like Gabriel had tried to do, but there was always work to be done or prayers to answer. And what would he have said to the brother he himself cast out? But the worst had been after Lucifer's descent into the Cage. He'd been completely cut off and there'd been nothing but silence from the space that used to be Lucifer in Michael's mind.

But now that he was experiencing the Cage firsthand, the special spot reserved for Lucifer was the only one bustling with noise and emotions and thoughts. It was more than Lucifer had gotten when he first landed in the cage, and it was more than Michael felt he deserved. Though the thoughts of betrayal, anger, and hatred still lingered around and still stung like they did the first time Michael heard them, Lucifer was an anchor in a stormy sea.

The pain grew the more Michael thought about the echos of emotions from Lucifer and about what he'd done. He'd tried to remain the ever stony soldier through it all, but could not help but call out in pain now and then. It was getting too much to bear, yet not enough to assuage the guilt. All over his being was pain that he'd never imagined, burning away everything that made him up. He was being torn into a million pieces only to be shoved back together again and again. He was being expanded until he felt infinite only to implode back to normal.

But then there was cool. At first it was concentrated. Just one small spot that soothed the pain. It grew slowly, easing away more and more of the pain. Soon enough, Michael felt as though he was being embraced.  
Which he was.

Lucifer embraced him the way only archangels could, and the fires and pain died down until they were just a footnote at the end of the page that was Michael. There was no resistance from Michael, and he moved until it was hard to tell where Lucifer ended and Michael began. It was more than he deserved, but less that Lucifer deserved. A small voice in the back of his head, a quiet lightning storm echoing gently, spoke to him.

“Brother.”


End file.
